This year the organisers of the T20 World Cup, that is taking place in the West Indies, have gone all out to make it a people’s World Cup. That is they have done everything they can to make it an enjoyable experience for the fans coming to watch matches in the stadiums. The thinking behind this is that the tournament is for the people who come to watch it, it is for their enjoyment and because these fans come to watch the matches the cricket tournament organisers make a serious amount of money. So it is in their best interest to make the tournament as enjoyable and fun for the fans as they can.
An article in The News International (Tuesday, 11th of March, 2010) ran a story about the things being done to make it a more enjoyable experience for the fans. This year the organisers of the T20 World Cup decided to lift the ban on bringing in things that make a lot of noise into the stadiums. The article states that, “the horns have been blaring, the drink has been flowing and the debates raging – Caribbean cricket, written off after the World Cup three years ago, has returned at the Twenty20 World Cup and it has a big smile on its face. Petty rules and regulations and ticket prices that excluded many local fans led to thousands of empty seats at the 50 overs World Cup in 2007 but organisers have learnt their lessons.” They effectively dropped the price of their tickets and made it easier for fans to enjoy themselves, by allowing them to bring drums and other noise makers into the stadium and also to allow food items to be served to them.
I have been to a few cricket matches in my life and the one thing you go there for is the environment. It is supposed to be like a party, if it wasn’t people would just sit at home and watch it there. The atmosphere and the feeling of going to watch a game in the stadium has the same quality of watching a film in the cinema, it’s all about the food and the atmosphere and going to do something with friends. It is also about that; the company you go with. The reason so many people go to watch a match in the stadium is because they can go with their friends, take some food, some beer, and make a party out of it. It becomes a whole day of fun. This is what the organisers of the event had forgotten but suddenly remembered this year, they decided to bring the fun back into the sport.
I have an interesting take on security in stadiums, I feel the more security there is the more at risk the stadium becomes. I know people will bring up the deterrence factor but if you just let everyone come into the stadium and have a good time chances are nothing bad will happen. If you restrict that element of fun from people’s lives; that is when things you don’t want to happen start to happen. I’m not saying don’t check anyone before they enter the stadium, of course the organisers should do that but they shouldn’t stop people from bringing in things like drums or dressing up in crazy costumes if they want to. the more freedom that there is in cricket matches for the fans the better it will be, after all who else are the teams out on the field playing for if not for the fans watching them.
People who set up cricket tournaments tend to forget the fact that it is the fans who pay for the tickets that pay for the salaries of all those involved in setting up the match. It would dot hem good to keep on adding more fun things for the fans to experience and do, like the cool pool I saw that was set up for the fans to cool off in, and if they manage to do that they will find more and more people wanting to come and watch the matches. There will be less empty seats and more people in attendance; they might even have to turn people away from the stadiums if they do a good job of it for the next tournament.
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